The Adam Smith Institute has an excellent short post on Britain's decision to increase the minimum wage from £4.85 to £5.35 over the next year, and what this will mean for smaller employers.

But the worries will start when things get tight. As President Carter's peanut-farming brother Billy put it: 'Hell, some people ain't worth the minimum wage!' And when things are bad, employers will shed those they regard as the most marginal workers first - unskilled people, youngsters, women, those with disabilities, and so on. According to an ASI report at the time, in the six months before the US introduced a minimum wage in 1990, 802,000 jobs were created. In the six months after, 350,000 jobs were lost.

It's been a long time since I was in a minimum wage situation (thank God for that!). The jobs I was doing were menial crap, and really didn't deserve the $7.35/hr I was getting. Stocking shelves, standing behind a cash register, pumping gas. Waitresses don't even make minimum wage, which is why waiting jobs are always available. I think that keeping the wage low gives people incentive to try harder, and aim higher. I didn't want to work in a gas station all my life! I wanted a nice cushy job that paid me $50k/yr. I'm almost there. I haven't given up, and I haven't settled. And I know that once I reach my $50k, I will start looking at the next level. But I remember friends of mine getting all excited when the minimum wage would be increased by a nickel or a dime. I could never share that excitement. It wasn't the life I wanted.